Crisis management as representational strategy: The arrangement of “African” subjectivities and the 2010 world cup

Abstract

Africa as the site for the World Cup begs for a media analysis that attends to the dynamics of postcoloniality and globalization. This article looks at the way in which postcolonial subjectivities are arranged in what the authors call a “subject deficit,” where players and fans are already racialized in and against colonial representations that mark them as “backwards” and “savage.” In this representational space, the “deficit” refers not only to a kind of “backwardness” but also to the way in which uneven capital flows mark particular national subjectivities as in debt to (neo)colonial nations of the global North. This subject deficit marks a crisis in the arrangement of postcolonial subjectivities. This article argues that in order to have the World Cup do its neoliberal, multicultural work, these crises have to be managed. This management translates into a representational strategy in which representations of the “other” echo historical forms.

Keywords:

• Algeria
• Egypt
• FIFA
• globalization
• humanitarian
• multicultural
• neoliberal
• postcolonial
• South Africa
• subject deficit
• World Cup